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Wall Street analysts said the job market has improved as the shocks caused last year from the Japanese tsunami and the Arab Spring have grown fainter. Following a scare this summer that the federal government might fail to raise its debt ceiling and risk default, the U.S. economy has shown new signs of strength with manufacturing indicators and construction spending improving.

But Bank of America economist Neil Dutta cautioned about reading too much into the ADP figure before the Labor Department releases its own December jobs numbers — expected to be 175,000 — on Friday.

ADP tends to overstate job growth at year-end because of differences in how it measures “purging” those that are no longer employed from the official records,” Dutta wrote in a note to clients.

As hiring improves, the Labor Department reported separately on Thursday that weekly jobless claims have fallen. For the last week of 2011, jobless claims were 372,000, down from 387,000 in the week prior. The unemployment rate and the number of jobs added in December will be released on Friday.

Yeah, like obama had anything to do with "good" economic news. It isn't going to save him. Sorry Politico.

He's spent every day of his Presidency trying to give my money to people who would vote for him. Period. That's all this clown has done. Any economic improvement before he's fired a year from now will be in spite of him.

Maybe you didn't read the article upside22. It said 325,000 new jobs were added. Even when the country is improving you anti-american low lives come out from under your rock and can't accept the facts.

Oh no! What are the Republicans going to do if the weak economy and jobs market (which they created) improves as it is the best thing that they have had politically going for them. It is understandable that they have done nothing to improve job creation since Republicans are NOT the jobs creators. Indeed, more jobs were created under Clinton (23 million) than Reagan, Bush I and Bush II who were mainly responsible for creating two-thirds of our National Debt that they have suddenly, as "born-again deficit hawks") noticed once out of the White House. Since their presidential candidates are pathetic, even uninspiring to Republicans, they need to divert attention.

By now, even the dullest most partisan and bigoted American should realize that Republicans have historically NEVER represented the working class and their latest plague of GOP (Greed On Parade) folks have never been more pro-rich, anti-poor.

while i'm not ready to go screaming into the streets, this is certainly good news... if it can besustained through the first quarter- that would be truly an indication of an economy on the rebound.

YES! upside22 this is indeed good news and a strong report when considering where this economy has been. now lets imagaine we still had those nearly 300,000 public sector jobs cut by state & local government since 2009 because republicans are forcing austerity on states. lets consider how much better those numbers would be had we a GOP that didn't place a higher priority on political party ideology than doing what is best for the nation.

McConnell, Boehner and Cantor are going to have to redouble their efforts to block the recovery. As they've demonstrated time and again, Party power is more important to them than the American people are.

Whether or not these numbers are accurate, Obama is obviously motivated to improve the standard of living for the middle/lower classes and working peoples. It is also equally obvious that republicans are obstructing as best they can any kind of economic recovery(among other things). Let us keep perspective though, the economy did not fall to the levels that it did overnight, we cannot grow it all back overnight. Obama 2K12!

A net job growth rate of 175,000 isn't even keeping up with population growth!

And this level of job growth is supposed to be considered "strong"?

Well, it certainly beats the 750,000 jobs a month Bush was bleeding when he left office. I'll take smaller Democratic job increases over huge Republican job losses any day. And I expect most Americans will feel the same say.